Wednesday, September 5, 2012

AFC reports stolen Bin Hammam payment documents to police

The Asian
Football Confederation (AFC) has advised the Malaysian police that documents
related to a payment by International Sports Events (ISE), a shareholder of
Singapore-based World Sports Group (WSG), to suspended AFC president Mohammed
Bin Hammam, have gone missing from its Kuala Lumpur offices and were allegedly handed
over to an associate of Mr. Bin Hammam, according to Malaysian police reports and
sources close to the AFC.

The sources
said the police were investigating the incident, which according to them as
well as the reports, was first reported to the police on July 31 by AFC finance
director Kuan Wee Hong. Mr. Hong told the police in subsequent statements that
the documents had been handed over to a Chinese male by the name of Tony Kang,
believed to be the husband of Amelia Gan, the soccer body’s finance director
under Mr. Bin Hammam.

Ms. Gan was
let go from AFC after Mr. Bin Hammam’s suspension on suspicion of bribery and
corruption. She has since been employed in Mr. Bin Hammam’s home country as a club
licensing officer by Qatar Stars League, which is headed by a member of the
Qatari royal family, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Bin Ahmad Al Thani. Qatar Holding
LLC, an investment arm of Qatar, holds a ten per cent stake in France’s
Lagardere Unlimited, according to Lagardere’s 2011 annual report. Lagardere is
WSG’s largest shareholder.

The missing
documents relate to a $2 million payment in 2008 by Saudi Arabia-based ISE, one
of three WSG shareholders according to the company’s website. A recent internal
AFC audit conducted by PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PwC) said that the money had
been paid to Mr. Bin Hammam for his personal use. The PwC report said the
payment by ISE, which is believed to have a ten per cent stake in WSG, as well
as a second payment of $12 million by a related company, Al Baraka Investment
and Development Co., were “of interest. Transactions of significant value
between these parties (of both a business and purportedly personal nature)
occurred around the time of the MRA contract (a controversial $1 billion master
rights agreement) negotiations with WSG,” PwC said in its report.

PwC said
that Al Baraka “may (through the Arab Radio & Television Co., which it
owns) have been a 20% beneficial owner of the group at that time (of the
payment). Further, our enquiries indicate that Mr Mohyedin Saleh Kamel, the
Assistant Chief Executive Officer (Investments) of the Dallah Al-Baraka Group
may have been (from 2005 2009) the Managing Director of ISE.” Al Baraka is a
finance arm of Dallah Al Baraka that is owned by Saudi billionaire Saleh Kamel.
PwC said that Mohyedin Saleh Kamel is believed to be Mr. Kamel’s son. It said that
ART and ISE appear to share a post office box in Saudi Arabia. Neither Messrs.
Kamel or their companies could be reached for comment.

In its
report, PwC said that “it is highly unusual for funds (especially in the
amounts detailed here) that appear to be for the benefit of Mr Hammam personally,
to be deposited to an organization’s bank account. In view of the recent
allegations that have surrounded Mr Hammam, it is our view that there is
significant risk that…the AFC may have been used as a vehicle to launder funds
and that the funds have been credited to the former President for an improper purpose
(Money Laundering risk)” or that “the AFC may have been used as a vehicle to
launder the receipt and payment of bribes.”

WSG has
refused to comment on the PwC report and has threatened reporters, including
the author of this report, with defamation proceedings. However in an August
28, 2012 letter to this reporter WSG Group Legal Advisor Stephanie McManus
asserted that “PWC are incorrect and misconceived in suggesting that the MRA
was undervalued. They have neither considered the terms of the contract
correctly, the market, nor the circumstances in which it was negotiated,” Ms.
McManus wrote.

The
agreement is controversial both because of the unexplained payments as well as
assertions by sources close to the AFC that the soccer group, in line with
common practice among international sport associations, should have concluded a
service provider rather than a master rights agreement with WSG. The sources
said such an agreement would have given the AFC greater control of its rights
and how they are exploited and enabled it to better supervise the quality of
services provided by WSG.

A July 31
Malaysian police report of AFC finance director Hong’s complaint says that he
noticed that an “important document, which contained a bank report/statements
belonging to former AFC president (Mohammad b Hammam), was missing from my
office.” Mr. Hong told the police that he and a colleague, James Johnson, had
last reviewed the document on July 13 and that “after that I kept the document
back in a storage drawer” until he discovered that it was missing.

The
Malaysian police could not be immediately reached for comment. Associated Press
last week quoted Kuala Lumpur police chief in charge of commercial crimes
investigations Izany Abdul Ghany as saying that police were investigating a
complaint by an AFC official that another senior AFC official, a non-Malaysian
national, had embezzled monies. Mr. Izany told the agency that the official
under investigation, whom he did not name, could be charged with criminal
breach of trust. Mr. Izany said the investigation was likely to take months.

Sources
close to the AFC said that the soccer body within hours of reporting the
missing document received a letter from Mr. Bin Hammam’s Malaysian lawyers
accusing it of being responsible for the disappearance. The sources said the
AFC had asked the Malaysian police to give it several days to conduct its own
internal investigation before looking into the matter.

A second
Malaysian police report dated August 11 corroborated by sources close to the
AFC quoted Mr. Hong as reporting to the police that AFC staffer Selina Lee Siew
Choo, “had admitted taking the file (containing the documents) and said she had
handed them to a male Chinese known as Tony, the husband of Ms Amelia Gan, who
was the former (AFC) Finance Director. Selina had also admitted making a copy
of a bank document advice for a transaction worth USD $2 million, which was a
payment from ISE.”

A August 15
Malaysian police report, also corroborated by sources close to the AFC, quoted
Mr. Hong as saying that Ms. Choo on August 2 had “admitted stealing the file
from the drawer in my office as instructed by Ms Amelia Gan (former finance
director at AFC). Her instructions were to steal the file which showed the
document/ bank advice containing the US$2 million transaction from ISE and
surrender them to her husband, Tony Kang.”

The report
quoted Mr. Hong as further saying that “I have my suspicions/reasons to believe
that the theft of the file was to dispose evidence involving a case of wrongful
management of AFC accounts by Mohammad Bin Hammam in the wake of a financial
audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers.”

Mr. Bin
Hammam has been suspended for more than a year as FIFA vice president and AFC
president on charges of having sought to bribe Caribbean soccer officials to
support his failed effort last year to challenge Sepp Blatter in elections for
the FIFA presidency. The PwC report constituted the basis on which Mr. Bin
Hammam’s suspension was extended in July after the Court of Arbitration of
Sport overturned a FIFA ruling that banned Mr. Bin Hammam for life from
involvement in professional soccer. The reporting of the missing documents fell
within the legal timeframe in which the AFC was obliged to report to the
Malaysian police that it had reasonable grounds to suspect a violation of the
law.

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James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile